Page 34: of Marine Technology Magazine (Sep/Oct 2026)

Unmanned and Autonomous Vehicles

MTR

Commercial operators deploy Saildrone Voyager 100

Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs) out to sea in the initial steps of U.S. 4th Fleet’s Operation Windward

Stack during a launch from Naval Air Station Key

West’s Mole Pier and Truman Harbor, Sept. 13, 2023.

FOLLOW THE

MONEY

U.S. Navy photo by Danette Baso Silvers/Released

By Philip Lewis, Research Director at Intelatus Global Partners “Follow the money" is a phrase popularly but incorrectly

THE U.S. APPROACH: attributed to Deep Throat/Watergate. Broadening the cov-

PRIMES, COMMERCIAL YARDS AND VCS erage of the phrase to include the hot unmanned and au- Four major private shipbuilders act as Navy primes: HII tonomous surface and underwater vehicle segments allows (leads in unmanned systems via ROMULUS USV and us to understand what’s really going on in the market and REMUS AUV programs under Odyssey autonomy soft- the sums of money involved are signi